Putty Session Times Out Too Fast! Let's NEVER time out!

When I use Putty to run an SSH session it always times out too quickly. How do I make it so that the session never times out?
Putty is one of the most popular Windows based network connection clients. The protocols it supports include SSH, Telnet, Rlogin, Serial, Raw. Whenever I ssh into my ssh server and wait a bit the session times out! The reason is my SSH server sets a timeout value and when my inactivity exceeds that value the session times out. When it happens and when I type something the following dialog window pops up:



Isn't it annoying? How the hell do I tell the session to NEVER time out? One way is to configure your remote server to never time out. However it may be complicated and you may not have the permission to do so. Luckily there's a way for Putty to help you achieve this goal!

Solution
You can actually tell Putty to keep sending packets to the remote server so that the server thinks the session is alive and will not time out. Isn't that nice? Simply follow the following steps.

1. Create a session profile!
Fill in the session credentials of the session you regularly access by filling out the following fields: Host Name (or IP address), Port, Connection type. A sample screen shot looks like this:



2. Configure your session profile!
Go to Connection on the left tree and you should see the following screen shot:



The red rectangle highlights what you need to change. The value of 'Seconds between keepalives (0 to turn off)' is the number of seconds between each two null packets sent to the destination server to keep the session alive. Simply change the value to something like 10. Keep in mind the value depends on how quickly your remote server times out your session when you are inactive. If you find that your session still times out set the value lower.

3. Save your session profile!
Click on Session on the left to go back to the session window which looks like:



Give it a name in the 'Saved Sessions' field. In the example the value of that field is 'daltrac'. Then click on Save button. Now you've saved this session profile. Whenever you want to access a session created by this profile simply click on it in the saved session list and click on Open button!

Now you should be able to run the session and keep the session indefinitely without it timing out. Again this is because Putty keeps sending packets to the remote server to make it think that the session is alive.

If you have any questions please let me know and I will do my best to help you!

Why My Laptop Fails To Recognize Built-in Microphone

Q: Why Does My Laptop Fail To Recognize the Built-in Microphone?

A: My laptop is an ASUS model with i5 CPU core. It's got a built in microphone as the spec says. However when I use Skype for some reason it does not recognize the built-in microphone. If I use an external microphone then it works.

After some tweaking and searching I finally found that the microphone setting in Control Panel -> Sound -> Microphone is "not enabled". After I set it to "enabled" it works!

If not let me know!

Why The Projector Fails To Recognize My Computer

I tried to connect my laptop to the projector but it keeps failing to recognize it. Why? My colleague's laptop is the same model and it works.

Answer: If your computer does not automatically recognize the projector when they are connected, make sure you set your PC's resolution correctly. In other words you need to set your PC's resolution to one that's supported by the projector. If you don't know what resolutions your projector supports simply try several resolutions until it works.

Solution #1: Set your PC's resolution to one that's supported by the projector.

Another possibility is that your computer has a setting that prevents it from recognizing external device automatically. In that case you need to manually switch to the projector view which is usually done via some hot keys.

Solution #2: Manually switch to the projector view which is usually done via some hot keys!

If none of the above works let me know!